Shu Lie was knocked to the ground, coughing up blood.
He staggered to his feet, clutching his chest, only to see Hu Shilan approach unhurriedly and stand over him.
Her fox tail shot out, wrapping around Shu Lie’s neck.
“Cough…”
Shu Lie was lifted into the air by force. He clawed at his own throat, veins bulging on his forehead.
Hu Shilan only watched him coldly as the life slowly drained from him.
Shu Lie shifted into his true form, a black rat, hoping to break free.
But at that mont, an ice spike blocked his escape.
“Squeak…”
Before he could react, the fox tail slamd him to the ground.
The black rat’s neck was captured again, leaving it completely helpless this ti.
Hu Shilan spoke. “Did you ever imagine this day would co?”
The black rat’s breathing grew faint. Its vision darkened.
It felt bitter and unwilling, but it was already too late.
In an instant,
an Eighth-Realm Great Demon t its end.
Hu Shilan let out a long breath. A thing she’d always longed for was finally done.
She thought of A Nian, of all the “nagging” during those past years. A tear slipped from the corner of her eye, but her expression quickly turned cold again.
Hu Shilan turned and looked across the Desolate Plain, now scattered with corpses.
A young man hunched in a pool of blood, knees tucked to his chest, unmoving as the rain lashed down.
Hu Shilan stepped forward, stopping before him.
Gou’er lifted his head to see who it was.
Hu Shilan looked at him. “Death is near for you.”
Gou’er opened his mouth slightly. His head drooped. “I know.”
“Any regrets?” Hu Shilan asked.
Gou’er paused. He stared at the devastation around him.
He was silent for a long ti, unable to find an answer.
Hu Shilan took another step. She reached out and gently wiped a sar of blood from the young man’s cheek.
For a mont, she seed to mistake this boy for that other A Nian. But then she stopped, pulling her hand back quickly.
Li Wennian was dead.
Gou’er kept his head down, mumbling, “Help … kill .”
Hu Shilan froze. Hearing those words, she drifted into mory.
“He said that to once. He wished for to kill him too.”
Hu Shilan sighed softly. “So… ask soone else.”
With those words, she turned to leave.
To her, this Demon Realm held no ties anymore. She wanted nothing to do with any of it. She would leave alone.
Gou’er raised his voice weakly toward her back. “I beg you.”
Hu Shilan never slowed. She never looked back.
She had co only for revenge.
All other matters ant nothing.
Gou’er slumped to the ground. He glanced sideways at the sword lying nearby.
He reached for it.
But the mont his fingers touched the hilt, the demon blood inside him seed to go wild, tearing at his mind.
“Ah—!”
A roar tore from Gou’er’s throat.
He lifted the sword, aiming it at his own throat—but halfway there, his grip loosened.
The sword clattered back to earth. The angry red glimr faded from his eyes.
Gou’er fell forward.
Tears ran down the corners of his eyes.
“Why…”
He lay in the bloody pool, crying one mont, then suddenly laughing wildly the next.
In that mont, he truly lost his mind.
Although the red tinge left his eyes, his laughter beca piercing, haunting.
“Ha, hahahaha…”
His chest heaved. That terrible, shrill laughter spread across the entire Desolate Plain.
From atop the fortress wall, Mu Cang gripped the stones fiercely. Veins stood stark on his hands. He desperately wanted to go down and bring him back.
But Lao Bazi stopped him, shaking his head.
“Why not!!!”
Mu Cang’s fists clenched. He glared at Lao Bazi and shouted, “He’s human! Not a monster!!”
Lao Bazi frowned, replying, “But he will kill people!”
Lao Bazi’s low anger silenced Mu Cang completely.
Mu Cang slamd his fist against the fortress wall. With a heavy thud, a crack appeared in the stone.
Humiliation!!
Lao Bazi continued, “If the man surnad Song were here, he’d make the sa choice. Besides, did you ask the boy himself? If he wished to return, why would he remain out there? He likely understands better than any of us.”
Mu Cang stayed silent. Words rose to his lips again and again, yet nothing ca. Helplessness choked him.
On the peak of Green Mountain,
Qing Tianyou stood up. That chilling, shrill laughter reached their ears.
He turned to Chen Changsheng, saying, “He’s gone mad. Truly mad this ti.”
Qing Tianyou looked torn. He asked Chen Changsheng, “Can you help him…?”
Chen Changsheng returned the look. “How should I help him? Clear his mind? And then what, after he’s clear?”
Qing Tianyou’s heart sank.
Yes, what then?
Likely even greater pain would follow.
Born in the Monster race himself, Qing Tianyou was no stranger to cruelty. Yet seeing this boy now filled him with a profound sense of wrongness.
He wanted to fight for him. But against what? Emptiness. Nothingness lay ahead.
A thread snaps at its thinnest. Hard luck seeks those already suffering.
The young man, trapped in fate’s rough current, finally broke under the torrent of pain and misfortune.
Losing his mind felt, perhaps, like a kind of release.
…
After losing his hold, the young man spent every day in this state, consud by mad, constant laughter.
Day and night, that piercing laughter echoed endlessly.
No human dared set foot on the Desolate Plain to silence him. No creature dared.
Days passed. Corpses littering the plain began to rot. The putrid stench stung the nose.
Vultures circled overhead at first, eager to feast on the decay. Driven away by that wild, grating laughter.
The mad youth started gathering the remains. He laid them side by side, separating the corpses of humans and monsters.
“There. This is better…” he murmured while walking the lifeless plain.
He’d pause now and then, halting in front of a rotting body to talk.
“I knew a really, really strong swordsman.”
“Everyone called him the Chieftain. He killed so many monsters all by himself. Amazing. But then, he died.”
“I was right there, watching. I couldn’t bear it. I didn’t want him to die. But I was useless. Utterly useless. I was so sad… so so sad.”
The corpse didn’t speak back. But the boy acted as if speaking to a friend.
He didn’t just talk to humans. Sotis he’d sit by a monster husk, holding these unheard conversations.
Often, he’d speak of a white fox.
“That fox? So strong. A really, really good monster,” he’d whisper to bones picked clean by birds or wild dogs.
Other tis, he’d ntion another man.
“Mr. Chen was a very, very kind man.”
This phrase beca frequent. Sotis repeated half a dozen tis in a single afternoon.
As days wore on, the boy’s behavior grew stranger.
He started hearing voices coming from the decaying bodies. Imagined them responding.
“Where do you live?” he’d ask one day, head tilted like listening intently.
Then reply to himself, soft and wondering, “That’s so far…”
Another pause. An imaginary query floated on the dead wind. “What? You ask where I live?”
The boy faltered. His expression clouded. Beca unfocused.
He mumbled, lost, confused.
“I think…”
His voice trailed off. Finally faded into a bare whisper, almost lost under the plain’s vast emptiness.
“Can’t rember.”
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